Hello From the Other Side
by cmblackbird
Summary: When an unsub abducts JJ, Garcia blames herself and begins to develop an eating disorder to cope. The unsub's treatment of JJ begins to awaken old eating disorder demons in her as well. When JJ is finally rescued, how will Penelope and JJ cope? To reiterate, this story contains strong suggestions of eating disorders and minor violence. Please do not read if you may be offended.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N This is my first attempt at a story, so just tell me if I should keep going with this story or just give it up! Feel free to give my writing a review. Also, this is an AU after "200" where Emily never left the BAU and Rossi was never a part of the BAU. Finally, I don't own anything Criminal Minds._

Inspired by "Witness to the Decompression" by Kerisenpai and "Never Enough" by kaeh98

 **Chapter One**

JJ collapsed onto the bar stool, sighing heavily as she did so. The team had just finished a case, and it was a particularly tough one for her. The unsub was targeting children, and he had a little girl captive when the team found his lair. When JJ went to talk him down, he grabbed the girl and put the gun to her head. She could tell she was losing the battle, as he was becoming more and more animated and unstable. Before she could end it, he shot the little girl in the head. She quickly fired one bullet into the unsub's head and rushed to the girl, calling for the medic as she did so. But she could tell it was too late. Brushing the girl's hair back from her face and wiping the blood from her eyes, JJ heard her last gasp for air and saw her tiny chest hitch for the last time. Then she was gone.

That's how she ended up in this hole-in-the-wall bar in the heart of St. Louis. Lately she had taken to drinking more and more after a case, and she could tell when she ordered her first scotch that she would soon slip into the hazy oblivion that had become ever so familiar but ever so welcoming. She knew that it was turning into a borderline problem, and she knew that Pen knew too, because she tracked the team using their phones, but tonight she didn't care. She was becoming increasingly depressed after a string of negative results of cases, and the bottle was the only thing that seemed to help, if only temporarily.

The team knew that she had gone out to be alone, but she had caught the concerned glances from Morgan and Emily, and even Reid. They were profilers, after all, and she had experienced a pretty horrible event today. She shook all of it out of her mind and focused on the bottom of her glass, which needed to be refilled. She lost count of how many she had before the bartender cut her off. Was it 7? 8? 9? She shakily extricated herself from the barstool as the world came in and out of focus. She may have overdone it tonight. Staggering out of the bar, she reached for the keys to her rental before realizing that she walked to the bar from the team's hotel, which was just a block or two from the bar. She was in no condition to walk, but she didn't want the team to see her like this, so she set her jaw and began to stumble off in the direction of the hotel.

Before she could even get out of the bar's parking lot, she heard a rustle behind her. Even though her brain was alcohol-addled, her instincts took over. She swiveled as quickly as her dizzy body would allow, but she had no defense against the wooden baseball bat that cracked down onto her head. Everything slowly turned to black as she felt herself being picked up and thrown into the back of a moving vehicle, powerless to resist.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

"Jayje. Jayje sweetie. Time to get up and at em, our flight is in an hour and a half." Penelope Garcia, the BAU's technical analyst, frowned as she gently knocked on her best friend's hotel room door. It wasn't like JJ to be late, as she prided herself on always being prompt. She was supposed to show up in the lobby with her stuff packed ten minutes ago, and Penelope was concerned.

Garcia went to the hotel's front desk and, after explaining the situation, got a spare key to JJ's room. She had kept JJ's absence in the lobby quiet because she knew from JJ's location last night that she had been drinking again, and she figured that JJ just had a bad hangover and had slept through her alarm. As she slid the keycard into the lock and swung open the door, she became increasingly concerned to see that her friend's luggage hadn't been packed. Garcia opened the door to the suite's bathroom and expected Jayje to be hunched over the toilet, but she saw no one. Garcia was becoming increasingly alarmed. She rushed back down to the lobby and called Hotch over.

"Hotch. JJ went out to drink last night and never got back to her hotel room. Have you seen her since yesterday?" Garcia's tone was grave, the antithesis of her usual bubbly one.

"No, and I've already asked Rossi, Morgan, and Prentiss. Why didn't you tell me she was out drinking?" Hotch admonished Garcia with his usual brusqueness.

"I was worried you all would think less of her. She's been having a really tough time lately. But right now, she's gone." Garcia was on the verge of tears.

Ever calm and collected, Hotch asked "Have you checked her location recently? Maybe her phone is still on."

In Garcia's panic, she hadn't even thought to check JJ's phone. When she did, she saw that JJ had left the bar, then seemed to be in a moving vehicle for about a half mile before her phone's signal abruptly stopped. This was bad. This was very bad. Someone had taken JJ.

A single tear spilled over Penelope's eyelid, smudging her carefully applied mascara and eyeliner. Her best friend was gone and she could have prevented it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

 **THE NEXT DAY**

JJ woke up with the worst hangover of her life. As she rolled over to check the time, fully expecting to wake up in her hotel room, she realized that she was lying on a cool medical table and her each of limbs were chained to a corner of the table. The previous night's drunken binge and abduction came rushing back to her, and she screamed for help until her throat was raw. Her agent instincts and training then took over, and she tried to calm herself down and examine her surroundings.

She definitely had a concussion from the abduction, and this was making it hard to stay focused. She did notice that the room she was being held in was dark and dank, so it was probably underground. The room appeared to be filled with various medical equipment, and there was an IV sticking out of her right arm. She realized that she was probably being drugged, which also contributed to how foggy her mind was.

She was still in her dress shirt and slacks, but her gun was absent from its holster and her phone from her pocket. She didn't see a way out of this predicament, and her emotions began to take over. Tears filled her eyes and she silently cursed herself.

 _How could I have been this stupid?_ She thought. Ever since Askari captured and tortured her, she had been on her guard, but her drinking had made her vulnerable.

She was snapped out of her musing by the sound of the old door in the front of the room squeaking open. A dark figure slunk in and suddenly appeared by her side.

"Hello, Jennifer." He said in a low, sultry voice as he caressed the side of her face.

It took all JJ had not to bite the rough hand on the side of her face, but all of her training told her that the longer she played along with this unsub's sick fantasy, the more she could find out about him, and the more she could get into his head. She wondered how he knew her name, but at the same time, this told her that the unsub was organized and that she hadn't been a victim of opportunity. He had been watching her.

She managed to eke out a "And your name is?", but her voice was hoarse from yelling. She sounded more pitiful than she intended to, and she hated herself for it.

"You'll know in time, Jennifer. Well, maybe you won't. But your team sure will." This man was as slimy as they came. JJ still had no idea what he planned to do to her, but he wanted to involve the team, so she knew that she had a little more time. She may as well make him pay for taking her. _Damn it all, Jennifer Jareau was a fighter, and she would fight until the end._

He reached to brush back her blood-crusted hair, but she bit hit hand as he went to do so. His otherwise dead eyes lit up with anger and he grabbed a syringe from a work bench next to the table she was lying on and plunged it into her IV port.

As her consciousness once again began to fade to black, she heard him say "You'll pay for that, Jennifer. I have complete control over you."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

 **THAT NIGHT**

Garcia was a ball of tears and Kleenex. As the day wore on and turned to night, she became increasingly hysterical. Even Morgan couldn't calm his baby girl down for more than a few minutes. She just couldn't shake the notion that it was all her fault. She should've checked on Jayje. Why didn't she check on Jayje?

And now they were going to have to go back to Quantico without her. Without JJ, her closest friend. Her rock through her shooting. Her buddy to stay in and watch a movie together, or to go clubbing together. Jayje was not coming home to her chic apartment in the heart of DC's trendy Logan Circle neighborhood. Jayje may not ever come back. This thought sent a new wave of sobs through Garcia, and the team was gathered outside JJ's room, debating what to do. Garcia wouldn't leave JJ's room, and they didn't know how to move her. Each of them went in separately.

Prentiss took a deep breath and swiftly opened the door. She tried to appear under control. After all, she was supposed to be the stoic one, right? Hotch's counterpart? Her façade crumbled when she saw Garcia completely devastated. She began to weep, and she knew that she would be of little help to Garcia, but she decided to try anyway. Garcia, Prentiss, and JJ had recently taken to having "girl's nights", and Emily had really grown to love the two other women. She was beginning to trust them, and she didn't trust many people. Emily took both of Garcia's hands and knelt down to look her in the eye.

"Pen. Listen to me. I will stop at nothing to find the bastard who took our Jayje. Neither will our team. You know that. But what need to do to help Jayje is go back to the BAU and gather all the evidence we can. And you're the most important part of that. You didn't cause this, but you can fix it. Come on, Pen. You know the statistics. The first 48 hours are critical. We need to get to Quantico to find our Jayje." Emily said in her usual even cadence (occasionally marred by the hitch in voice that comes with crying).

Emily's words penetrated Garcia's grief. She started to get JJ's stuff together, and she and Emily emerged from the room 15 minutes later with JJ's suitcase. They were going to save JJ.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

 **THREE DAYS LATER**

"Jennifer. Jeeeeeennnnnifer." Came the sickeningly singsong voice of the man who was her captor. She was slowly coming out of her drug-induced stupor, but everything seemed different. Her concussed mind absentmindedly wondered if this was when she was going to die.

The man had a webcam and began to force her head upwards and put a dirty, rolled up towel beneath the crook of her neck. She also realized that she had been gagged since the last time she was conscious. Something was going to happen, and maybe she would get some answers. Or maybe she would die. That seemed like an okay option at this point.

"It's time to talk to your knights in shining armor, Jennifer." He connected his webcam to his laptop, and inputted Garcia's internal line into the video conference app's "call" dialog box.

 _Who was this man? How did he know Pen's personal internal number?_ These thoughts escaped JJ as a pounding migraine took up residence in her brain.

The call took a few seconds to connect, and then it was accepted. JJ wanted to see her team. This was his mistake, she knew. He would stay connected to them long enough, and Garcia would trace the call and they would come rescue her.

Garcia's face came into view, but without the makeup that was her trademark. Dark circles had appeared under her eyes, and her hair was disheveled. She broke down when she saw the unsub sitting next to JJ, caressing her. She yelled for the team, who came rushing into the techno-lair, and she was completely sobbing by the time Hotch, Prentiss, Reid, and Morgan came into view. JJ tried to smile through her gag, but she was too broken.

The unsub began to speak. JJ would finally know the identity of the man who would forever haunt her.

"Hello, Behavioral Analysis Unit. Aaron, looking dapper, as usual. Derek, the womanizer. Emily, is that a tear I see? Oh, come on. That's not the Emily that I know. Spencer, what a boy genius. Bet you're not as smart as I am! And, finally, we have the lovely Penelope Garcia. Technical analyst extraordinaire, and Jennifer's closest friend. Don't bother trying to trace this call, by the way; you can't. Cute try, though. My name is Bert Doran. Again, you won't be able to trace me, so don't waste your time. If you all can find me, you can have your precious Jennifer back. Until then, I'll do what I wish with her. Ta ta!"

As Doran ended the call, JJ could see and hear her team giving her support, and it strengthened her reserve. This ended up being only temporary, as Doran brought out a thin tube of some kind.

"Time for your treatment, my little Jennifer." Doran was the oiliest person JJ had ever met, oilier than Askari even.

Doran yanked up her dress shirt and she prepared for the worst. But Doran had something else in mind. He ran his long, rough fingers down her toned and tanned abdomen. She recoiled, but he did nothing more. He simply replaced her shirt and said "You're looking pretty bony, Jennifer. We'll have to fix that". JJ wondered what this meant, but then a syringe was plunged into JJ's IV port.

And then there was nothing.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

 **THE SAME DAY**

"Garcia, anything on Bert Doran?" Hotch asked, trying to lighten his usual harsh tone because of recent events. Everyone had been walking on eggshells around Garcia since they got back to Quantico. If her position wasn't so vital to the team, and if she wasn't the only one qualified to do it, Hotch would have forced her to take some days off, but Penelope Garcia was the best in the business.

"No, Hotch. Nothing. Bert Doran has never existed before that video call. He ran the wireless signal through a scrambler that bounced the signal around the globe. He's too smart. He's too smart and he has JJ." Garcia's chin was quivering, and Hotch saw her exterior starting to crack. In a rare moment of tenderness, Hotch gave Garcia a strong (though brief) hug. She kept her emotions in check, and kept working until Hotch departed. However, as soon as Hotch was out of earshot, the swift staccato of Garcia's keystroke abruptly stopped.

Garcia was losing control of her life. She was barely sleeping, and when she did, all she could see was Jayje's broken expression and Doran's disgusting face. She had not eaten since JJ was taken three days ago. She only talked to the others when necessary, and she was slowly slipping into a pit of isolation.

She needed some measure of control in her life. While she was caught in her thoughts, Emily entered her lair. She had brought lunch.

"Pen, it's time for a break. You can't work well on an empty stomach." Emily took Garcia's favorite dish out of a takeout bag and began to unbox it.

"One vegetarian spaghetti and meatballs, fresh from Alberto's! The perfect brain food." Emily said with forced positivity.

Garcia picked up the plastic fork and began to eat slowly. Garcia avoided eye contact with Emily, who read the signs and left Garcia to her thoughts, glancing back worriedly as she departed. Garcia was suddenly disgusted by herself. _How could I be eating when JJ was being tortured somewhere?_ She felt nauseous and rushed to the nearest bathroom. Garcia knelt over the toilet, but nothing came up. _I can't even be sick properly?_ She took things into her own hands, and shoved two fingers down her throat.

The release she felt when her meal appeared in the toilet bowl was the first release she'd felt since Jayje was abducted. If this was the only part of her life she could control, then she would control it.


End file.
